George Lucas’s plans for a Star Wars sequel trilogy were pretty surprising – not least of the fact they would have centred on the emergence of a new villain previously seen in the panels of a mid-‘00s comic book that was once part of the Extended Universe canon.
Darth Talon, whose first appearance came in 2006’s Star Wars: Legacy comic series, was going to form a partnership with a resurrected Darth Maul in Lucas’s outline for Episodes 7-9, a trilogy that would have also seen Leia become Supreme Chancellor of the New Republic. The Darth Talon that Lucas intended to use would not have been the same as the one in the comics but would have been influenced by her (in other words, the story would have been very different).
Darth Talon concept art and storyboards by Iain McCaig from January and February of 2013, as seen in @ABRAMSbooks’ The Art of #TheForceAwakens.#StarWars pic.twitter.com/7MZfrKcWqxNovember 10, 2020
So, Darth Talon is… female Darth Maul. Those twin lightsabers certainly show the apple doesn’t fall far from the Sith tree in terms of unorthodox fighting styles. The concept art also hints at her powers of seduction and feels a little out of place in the Star Wars universe.
Of course, Darth Talon didn’t make it into either the unmade sequel trilogy, but that character design was in the works for what eventually became Star Wars: The Force Awakens.
Lucasfilm’s Pablo Hidalgo previously said (via Naboo News) that Darth Talon was originally conceived as a character that would seduce Han and Leia’s son over to the Dark Side, an idea that eventually morphed into Kylo Ren – the offspring of the Organa/Solo relationship – becoming a Sith.
What could have been. No Lucas-made Episode 7. No twin lightsabers. No Darth Talon. Boo. Instead, we all had to make do with shirtless Kylo Ren.
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